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Sunday, April 6, 2014

Preschool Story Time - The Letter of the Month is C

Moving on from the letter B, we come to a challenge. The letter C. Hmmmm. Two natural sounds - that sound like other letters. Combine C with a 'friend' for a whole new sound. This was a very difficult thing for everyone to process. I might have stuck with a hard C and not tried to introduce so much information. Here's what we did: First up we always do our Mail Call. Here's my original post on the Mailbag with letters.

Our mailbag offerings for this month include 5 envelopes with various C words. This month it was the letter C, a cat, a cow, a coat, and our Animal in Underwear (Todd Parr): Chick. Chick started off our way-too-lengthy discussion of the weird C sounds. Again, I think I should have stuck with the hard C sound.

Then we sang our usual "Letter of the Month" song to the tune of Old MacDonald:Our librarian has a book - E-I-E-I-OAnd in that book there were some Cs - E-I-E-I-OWith a cuh, cuh, here and a cuh, cuh, there.Here a cuh, there a cuh, everywhere a cuh, cuhOur librarian has a book - E-I-E-I-O

(and then we repeated with the soft C sound. I accompany them on ukulele)

Then it was on to the books!

Aside from the fact that no one knows what a typewriter is anymore, this one was a hit and got a lot of laughs. I used to read this one to preschoolers years ago, but this was the first time I did it in my story time. Sadly, this book might need to be updated to "Laptop."

We paused for some C songs here. This is to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel

Round and round the paper I go. What fun to go around like so.What have I made, do you know? I made a circle.

Easy little song but the kids enjoyed pretending to drive and honk. Don't forget to go BIG on your motions!

Last minute switch, but a good one! Each animal gets their due feed, but the cow loves cookies! Why does the cow love cookies so much? Another good one for story time.

After halftime, it was time for my Flannel Story!

I pulled out my Pete the Cat felt board for today! I actually have two sets of Pete to go with this book. One has standing Pete - like this book, and one has sitting Pete, which uses only 2 shoes per color. I have the standing Pete for larger crowds because 16 shoes is better than 8 when your numbers are larger. My Versatile Pete posts are HERE and HERE for more about how I do Pete's other stories.
Everyone loves Pete the Cat - so this was a very easy one to do. It takes a long time to get through though, so be ready for lots of pauses for costume changes on Pete!

Happy Anniversary to The Very Hungry Caterpillar!!! I won't tell you which one of us is older, but it's a pretty close call. Everyone loves this book. I did the pop-up version today which was stunning for the kids to see. Lots of Oooohs and Aaaaahs. A warning! Like Kristen says in her Baby Story Time, this one is harder to read in a crowd because everything opens up at funny angles and it's hard to read along. Be creative!

I was torn between two books at this point, as we were over time. I wanted to read Chicken Little by Ed and Kimberly Emberley, but since I had no more time, I went with Cookie Count because it was pretty to look at.

Not really a great story time book, but since it was a pop up, it was fascinating.

And the craft today - Well, the letter of the Month is C!! So, C is for caterpillar. The Very Hungry Caterpillar at that.

This craft was a big hit with the kids. They drew a C on their paper, and then they would do a pattern or all one color or just randomness with the greens. Owning a circle punch in several sizes is one of the best bits of advice I can offer. It makes craft prep so much easier!

I won't get to see this project through to Z, as I only have three story times left. I hope I have passed on some great tips on how to do a Letter of the Month story time at your library. Just have fun with it. The kids will be in school soon enough. Some will already know their letters and sounds, and some won't. No matter, make story time fun, and the leaning will just happen.